Translating The Gaining Kink into the Body Image Debate

According to the LGBT Wiki, some see variants of fat fetishism as an obstacle to fat acceptance because fetishes dehumanize people. We like fat too much, they say. An attitude I often observe is that there's an element of hypocrisy in guys who portray themselves as thin and health conscious as they can on public social, and as fat and indulgent as possible in gainer circles. That's certainly not inaccurate, but what is the natural conclusion for us to come to concerning the body image debate? Is it responsible to generally recommend fat guys be content with their weight? Implying that dissatisfaction with body image is socially induced might carry some truth, but ultimately most people don't find obesity the optimal body size for legitimate reasons.

In my research, I found a tweet that I want to explore. In it, a gentleman tweets that floral patterns are not for gays with a waistline of more than 32". Even as someone wouldn't be caught dead in most floral patterns, I see no reason to confine such clothes to skinny men. It can be challenging to make certain kinds of clothes work on a larger body merely on account of physics, but floral patterns? Really?

Go back to the original tweet and observe how many likes are assigned to the original tweet verses the responses of folks taken aback by his absurd opinion. The outrage opposing his claim far outweighs any support for his ideas. (Some of these people might be virtue signalling, sure, but it seems to me an indication of progress that toleration and acceptance of body differences is seen as virtuous.)

The Age of Skinny

"The Age of the Twink" is an article that prattles on about twinks for a few paragraphs, seemingly inspired by the contrast between the leads of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. There's really not much surprise in the difference between the builds of Hammer and Chalamet (ages 29 and 20 when filming began), nor does it play any explicit role in the film. (To me, both of the men in the film at hand were thin, with one being a bit more built. When you've been around gainers for a while, anything under 200 pounds is a twink.)

But sociological op eds don't thrive on viewing films on their own merits. No, it's better to draw broader judgments about society, and make vague claims about masculinity, as in the article's last sentence: "These twinks, after all, aren’t just enviably lean boys or the latest unrealistic gay fantasy, but a new answer to the problem of what makes a man."

What the hell that means is open to interpretation. There's a hunger in media to polarize gender or body expressions, but I say go for what makes you happy. You wanna be thin, built, fat, whatever - you find what pleases you. You like being effeminate, be effeminate. You like being masculine, be masculine. Or be some of both. Don't let others police you or those you care about according to what is said to be socially expedient.

Reacting to the Skinny-Praise

After all, the moment you praise one body type, especially a skinny one, someone is bound to get his panties in a wad no matter what you do. Take this article from The Independent, which references the above New York Times piece.

Despite the obnoxious title, it is the more coherent of the two pieces. I'll discuss his main points in the context of gaining and encouraging. Our desires being so wildly out of line with stereotypical gay culture gives us a unique perspective.

1. Grindr Sucks

There's not much I need to stay here. If you have any experience with oneline dating, you know there's good and there's bad. Some men are in it for the reasons you're in it. Some aren't.

One issue that divides dating apps up even further is the gay label system.

2. Body labels fragment Gay Culture

Twinks, bears, otters, daddies, cubs, gainers, encouragers, admirers, jocks - it's endless. For every man that perfectly embodies the stereotype accompanying one of these identifiers, there are a dozen more that could be shoved into multiple categories, a fact most apps recognize.

I don't think there's much utility in moral outrage over the use of labels. The human minds loves categorizing things, and on some level we need to simplify the world to be able to exist in it sanely.

One argument against labels is that some use it as an excuse to discriminate against guys of certain appearances. But even if you don't find such and such a man attractive, he is still worthy of love. And that is something you can respect and affirm when the tables are turned. We can only post so many fat-positive memes: the fact is most guys aren't into fat, and that's okay. The problem isn't the fact of what they find most attractive, it's what they do with those attractions and their actual behavior.

Even so, I agree with the author that gay culture takes the label thing too far. One of the original tenets of gay liberation, that we don't have to conform to social expectations, becomes muddied when we impose our own sub-cultural expectations on ourselves.

It's of far more use to evaluate those expectations for what is useful and harmful than it is to blindly embrace or reject labels.

3. Glorifying Twinks can promote Eating Disorders

I'm lucky to have never experienced an eating disorder, so I'm going to tread carefully around this subject. It's difficult to quantify how much of gay men's prevalence in male eating disorders is directly connected to gay culture. I have little doubt it's linked, but citing statistics about male eating disorders raises as many questions as it answers.

There could be other psychological and sociological factors that play into the development of eating disorders in gay men.

(If you feel like you might be suffering from an eating disorder, seek assistance from a clinical professional.)

But what about us? Can we be guilty of the same thing, but in the reverse? Is gaining a type of eating disorder? Do some of us use it as a disguise for eating problems?

Is Gaining an Eating Disorder?

The only major eating disorder that could be directly linked to gaining (that I could find) is compulsive overeating. But knowing my own experience, that doesn't describe a good number of us, myself included.

Indeed, the kind of debilitating description of an eating disorder one would find in the DSM-5 doesn't describe any of the gainers I know. You could argue it from the info on some profiles, but it's difficult to know how well their online personas match up to their actual lives.

But there are deeper concerns. Most doctors would say our eating habits are, to say the least, sub-optimal.

An expert in eating disorders gave her opinion on our desires to the Sydney Morning Herald in 2010, saying they may benefit from counselling and therapy. Your natural desire, I imagine, is to recoil from such theories. I share that instinct, but it is important to engage with these ideas, especially when there is extensive scientific literature that may or may not support them. The expert gives three reasons of the top of her head that people might gain on purpose:

• To get noticed: This is only true in the sense that it crossed into where we derive sexual satisfaction. And some people don't want this at all. 
• To fill a void: This might be her strongest point. I'm not saying it's true, but if gaining is the primary source of satisfaction in one's life, there might be need for further reflection.
• To prevent being victimized: This one seems a little insensitive on the surface, but she is speaking from a place of professional experience, and it sounds to me that this is an issue that an individual should seek professional help if this might be the case. It is, however, something I doubt is true of most male gainers, the demographic with which I have my experience.

Overall, none of these reasons are particularly convincing on their own, as none of them directly address the primary component of gaining for most of us: sexuality. For many of us, gaining is a conscious decision that accompanies years of sexual discovery and uncertainty.

Thankfully, some academics have recognized this, even going so far as to place us on a chart, which is about as damned official as anyone could hope to be:

In the feeblest sense, this chart is accurate. But one's sexuality might manifest itself along multiple parts of this spectrum. Many gainers also encourage, and some who prefer exclusively fantasy only do so temporarily, or because of a life circumstance.

Additionally, some of us lose attraction to more extreme fantasies, or have specific fantasies that rely on elements tangential to food and weight gain, such as teasing, tight clothes, or roleplay.

Conclusion

This post has been a mishmash of fun stuff. I think the cultural shift is toward a greater acceptance of overweight people, dissenters notwithstanding. I want to support body diversity in a way that also supports health, and acknowledges the uniqueness of my position. I'm happy to support someone's goals, even if they don't match my own.

And though I don't think gaining should be classified as an eating disorder, we should still maintain a degree of self-awareness. Just because this is my sexuality, it doesn't mean I'm not accountable to manage it. Who knows what unforeseen revelations lie in the future?